Nicholas Sparks

>> This is Matt Raymond at the Library of Congress. Each year, thousands of book lovers of all ages visit the nation's capital to celebrate the joys of reading and lifelong literacy at the Library of Congress National Book Festival, co-chaired in 2009 by President Barrack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. Now it's 9th year, this free event held Saturday, September 26th, on the National Mall in Washington DC will spark leader's passion for learning as they interact with the nation's best-selling authors, illustrators and poets. Even if you can't attend in person, you can still participate online. This podcasts with well-known authors and many other materials are available through the National Book Festival website at www.loc.gov/bookfest. It's now my pleasure to talk with the critically acclaimed author, Nicholas Sparks. Mr. Sparks has written an array of admired novels including the New York Times best seller "The Notebook", "A Walk to Remember" and "Nights in Rodanthe", each which were adopted into Blockbuster Films. In addition to movie version of "The Last Song", will hit theaters in 2010. Mr. Sparks, thank you so much for talking with us today. >> My pleasant, thanks for having me. >> Let's start out just a little bit with your background for people who might not know. What made you decide to pursue a career in writing? >> I have not the slightest idea. I think it was--I started writing on a whim to see if I could do when I was running. At that point in my life I was 19 years old, I was a full scholarship athlete at the University of Notre Dame. And I was going through a period of injuries and I was very frustrated. And my body just didn't seem to heal. And so, over the summer in between my freshmen and sophomore year, me and my mom, she just got tired of me pouting and she said, "Well, don't just pout, do something." >> And you were an athlete, correct? >> I was an athlete-- >> Yeah. >> --and watching my career go up in smoke. And I was just a bitter--you know, I was just real sad about that. And my mom, when she said this and I'm--I give her the all soapy teenage, "What should I do?" She said, "Well, I don't know. Write a book." And I kind of said, "OK." I don't have else to do that summer. So I wrote my first novel at the age of 19, it was terrible. It took me about six weeks. I actually finished a 300- page novel. I went back to college, majored in business finance. I didn't know what I want to do out of college. I wrote a second novel, also not very good. I moved on with my life, got married, had kids. And I guess when I was 28, I was selling pharmaceuticals. And I really had always been the kind of person who wanted to chase a dream, and I said, "I know, what can I do and keep my job?" 'cause I get--of course, I had bills like everybody else. I said, "What can I do to chase a dream and still keep my job?" And I said, "I know, I'll try writing again, but I'll give it a real shot." And the novel that came out was "The Notebook". >> Have you done much writing before that first novel? >> No. I was a very good student. I was a very good student. You know, I got A's in my high school English classes, but I got A's in all my classes. And so, I wasn't any better at writing than I was in mathematics or physics or anything else. I just--I always loved reading novels. I love stories. I love to turn the page quickly and become so caught up in a world full of imagination that I just--I grew up doing that. My parents were big readers. And so, I decided I wanted to give it a role. >> Is your success at all surprising to you given how sort of spontaneously you got into this? >> One would think, yeah. I mean I--it's one of those--it's been a very blessed career. I've been--Well, I worked with wonderful people. I will say that I worked very hard on the novels that I've written to make it as good as they could possibly be. But there's certainly no way you could ever pursue the kind of career that I've had or the good fortune that I've had. So yeah, it's always a bit surprising. >> Now, we solicited a few questions from some of your fans on our Twitter feed. And the first one that I want to ask you says, "Are there real life experiences that inspire you to write your love stories?" And I know that, you know, this has happened. And I think in particular a lot of members of your family, is that correct? >> Yeah, a lot of--most of my novels especially the early ones were drawn from events in my family whether it was my wife's grandparent served as the inspiration for "The Notebook". And my father after the death of my mother served as inspiration for "Message in a Bottle". This--And this, you know, you draw from wherever when you're a novelist. You may draw characters from people that you know or at the very least people you know in your mind, so to speak, people that you make up. All authors are more than anything observers of the world. So, that is what--then they try and take these observations and put them into words that people can understand. So I drew from these experiences when I'm certainly starting out. And even now when, you know, I'm dealing with novels that I don't-- that aren't necessarily drawn as specifically. Certainly, you know, there's still elements of personal stories of characters or people that I know, for instance in this last book, you might say that the younger brother John [assumed spelling]. He's a lot like my son lay in the crib. >> Now, I've read that your Catholic faith is very important to you, how does that manifest itself in your work? >> I am--Religion, spirituality is very important to me, and how does that manifest itself? Well, I don't put much or I don't profanity in my novels. I don't write about adultery and I don't try to shock the reader, so to speak, with horrific scenes. Any love scenes that I intend to be very timid thing, you might say that very--they're probably PG rated they're not even PG13, they're PG rated. I kind of slide through the whole physical acts. It's all the build up anyway so, you know-- >> Yeah. >> --they might kiss passionately. And then you get to it and fit with sentence and its over and-- >> The sun comes up the next day, huh? >> Yeah, exactly, you know. So, it's kind of like that and--but there's no question that my morality maybe. And in fact that's one of the things that I'm most proud of when I looked back in my career is that I haven't had to resort to these shocking things, profanity, or excess sexuality, or excess violence. I haven't had to do any of that and have still had the ability to keep readers interested and coming back and reading more and really caring about the novel. >> And how do your fans react to that? I mean, do they ever question whether that's true to life or realistic? >> Yeah. Oh, there's no question. There's no question. I mean there're plenty of authors who do the other way and I certainly know that profanity exist in the world. And there's books for people who wanted-- who don't mind reading that and I don't necessarily mind reading it. But I do get a lot of letters from people who thank me for writing the kind of books that I do. >> Now you're often hailed as a writer of romance as although you have said that that's a misconception, but your books do deal with the ups and downs of love. Why is that such a universal theme in your books? >> Well, I write dramatic fiction, you know, I do. I write dramatic fiction. These are love stories, well, there's an element. But the goal of dramatic fiction in early stages when you go all the way back to Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus was to--and they were writing plays way back when. They're then called the Greek tragedies. And what those were are those who work with dramatic fiction. And what they intended to do was to move the audience through the full range of human emotions whether it's happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, bitterness, envy, love, loss, tragedy, you want to move the readers through all of that. A romance novel does not necessarily strive to do that. A romance novel is a little bit different. It's more of a--like a fantasy-romance and that's not denigrating that genre but it's not what I do. They're not required to move the reader through the entire range of human emotion like a love story is.

Load more